Survival-chasing Sligo earn point at Dungannon

DUNGANNON were already assured of finishing second in Energia All-Ireland League 2B before they entertained relegation battlers Sligo on Saturday but head coach Jonny Gillespie was still disappointed that his side let a 22-10 lead slip in the final ten minutes.

“It was a bit of a dead-rubber and we had a lot of changes to the team,” Gillespie observed after his squad sustained several injuries at Skerries a week earlier.

“The level of accuracy was probably the most concerning but we’ll get a look at that during the week.”

The sides exchanged early penalties with Ben McCaughey and Euan Brown slotting over before Peter Nelson grabbed the opening try of the game for Dungannon just before the half hour mark, which McCaughey converted.

Parity was restored before the break, however, when Andrew Ward dotted down and Brown added the extras but a home victory seemed assured after Dungannon started the second half with a spring in their step.

Charlie Conroy and AIL debutant, Alfie Lewis both scored tries, one of which was converted by McCaughey, but with seven minutes remaining, Sligo started an impressive comeback with Kuba Wojtkowicz and Conan O’Donnell both crossing the whitewash. Fortunately for Dungannon, though, Brown only converted the first of those as the home faithful breathed a sigh of relief at a share of the spoils when the referee’s final whistle sounded.

With several key players sustaining injuries at Skerries a week earlier, Gillespie was pleased to see how those who stepped up managed the rarefied AIL atmosphere, including young Lewis, who scored a try on his debut against Sligo.

“Alfie’s talented, he has serious pace. He is still relatively new to the AIL thing but he backed it up with some nice touches and there’s some he could do a wee bit better on. It was nice to give him a good 25 minutes and we were able to rest and recover a few boys as well,” he added.

Dungannon travel to already relegated Malahide on Saturday to conclude their regular season schedule before hosting a promotion play-off semi-final, most likely against Clogher Valley.

“We have a few injuries to manage between now and then [the promotion play-off in a couple of weeks], there has been no real change to the league table and there won’t be now, so we’ll just get down the road to Malahide, get that over with as quickly as we can and start to prepare for the semi-final at home,” Gillespie added.

“It’s looking like it’s going to be a derby match with Clogher, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. They have been really consistent this year, so we have expected it to be them for quite some time, so there’s no surprise there to be honest.

“It will be a cup final and the previous results [Dungannon won both league encounters] won’t count for much, so we’ll have to be at our best and we’ve every intention of getting to that level because if we’re not on it at all, then we’ll get ourselves in big trouble.

“We’ll have them well respected and we’ll have to hit that level otherwise we’ll get in trouble.”